


Deal With It Later

by KnightRepentant



Series: Last Angel in Heaven [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, Kingsport Lighthouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 17:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11833758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightRepentant/pseuds/KnightRepentant
Summary: The Fallen and his right-hand gun do the good work of the Minutemen.





	Deal With It Later

26th January, 2288 A.D.

The gentle music of foam upon shingles was nowhere to be heard today. Beneath an oppressive sky, where thunderheads reared, the sea clawed in fury at the coast. Snow was thick in the air and upon the ground, and for this blessed moment, the land looked pristine. The Fallen drank in the bitter winter air, feeling its chill in his lungs, and breathed it out in a glad sigh. He shut his eyes and simply stood for a time, listening to the intense stillness, a brief oasis in the midst of the chaotic desert that was his new life.

               “Always took you for a summer-lover, y’know.” Over his shoulder, wearing a crooked smile, was a skinny strip of rags and ragged edges holding a rifle. “Didn’t think some pampered pre-war loser could handle the cold.” Smirking, The Fallen pointed with his rifle at the merc,

               “Can handle it better than some, especially scrawny, chatter-tooth punks,”

               “Oh, shoot me in my heart, why don’cha?!” They shared a grin, then turned back to the trail. Around them stood a vast graveyard. Rank upon rank of blasted trees, their branches snow-adorned. Bereft of leaves, the woods looked almost as they had in those long-lost winters before the War. “So, a lighthouse?”

               “That’s what Garvey said, there’s just the small matter of some squatters we gotta clear out. Some folks he called ‘Children’…” MacCready spat into the snow,

               “Goddamn Children of Atom! Hope you brought plenty of Rad-X, man. Their gamma guns pack a nasty sting.” 

               “Ain’t met a group o’ crazies yet as can’t be shut up by a bullet ‘tween the eyes, Lord knows you’re good at that.” Heat rose in MacCready’s cheeks, but he recovered swiftly,

               “I aim to please,”

               “Mack, if you make that joke one more time I’ll shoot you myself.”

               “Heh, spoilsport.” Snow crunched underfoot, and far beyond, a beam of light swept across the sky.

               The last thing the Child’s eye saw in this life was a .308 bullet speeding directly towards it. Blood and bone sprayed across a sign that read ‘Kingsport Lighthouse’. Green sparks burst in a flower of rads just above The Fallen’s head, and he quickly ducked behind a truck’s rusted carcass.

               “Whoa! These freaks ain’t half bad! Don’t wanna have to tell Garvey his hat got vaporised!” MacCready squinted down his scope, and found a Child not quite cautious enough. The rifle jumped back into his shoulder and another skull bloomed red like a waking flower.

               “Why’d you even bother with it?! We searched a dozen blocks to find a hat he’d swap it for!”

               “This is the only cowboy hat in the whole Commonwealth, Mack!” The Fallen yelled back, as if that were the only explanation required. Gamma blasts rained upon them from the blasted house, the hiss of radiation lost beneath the Childrens’ shrieked curses and calls upon the wrath of Atom. The Fallen slung his rifle over his back, “Fuck this”. A .44 and a 10mm spun in his hands,

               “What’re you…?” MacCready reached out a moment too late, his outstretched fingers caught only a fleeting grasp on The Fallen’s duster, “Are you nuts?! Get back into cover! Sam!  _Sam!_ ”

               This was nothing new. Chinese bullets or radiation-addled fanatics, it didn’t matter, he just needed to get the bullets where they needed to go. The .44 roared in his right hand and another Child folded up to be trampled underfoot.  _Keep moving. If you move, you live a few seconds longer_. His sergeant said that, in some long-buried foxhole. The 10mm snapped at the air, shattering ribs over by the lighthouse doors, and The Fallen whirled to bring the revolver to bear once again. The bullet leaping forth to smite another disciple struck a ribbon of crackling green energy arrowing in the opposite direction. Its impact upon his right shoulder felt no heavier than the brush of a bird’s wings, or the breath of a lover, but a terrible burning spread across his chest like the ire of a hundred hornets. The culprit received a sniper’s bullet to their temple as recompense, and the surviving Children fled to the lighthouse proper.

               The Fallen necked a couple of Rad-X and charged the door, a grenade sailing from his hand and between the doors just as they clanged shut. Cries of triumph from within had only the briefest instant to become screams of panic, until those doors shivered at the impact. There was quiet inside the lighthouse as The Fallen made to push the door open, until a hand clamped around his wrist,

               “Sam! Will you just stop for a minute?!” MacCready took him by the shoulders and forced their eyes to meet, “ _What the heck was that?!_ You don’t close with the Children, you could’ve been pukin’ your guts up in the grass by now!”

               “They had us pinned down, had to put ‘em off balance,” The Fallen replied in monotone. His face a mask of confusion and outrage, MacCready shook his friend roughly,

               “Hey! This isn’t China, or whatever, anymore! I need you here and now or next time we might not be so lucky!” The Fallen breathed in deep,

                _“Yeah_. Yeah, I’m sorry Mack, I…” MacCready lent a reassuring hand to his stinging shoulder,

               “We’ll deal with it later. One thing at a time, right?”

               The lighthouse beam still swung on, treading a familiar path without end. At the railing beneath that blazing beacon, a woman clung to every breath. Her garb was tattered, but not that of the Children, and she wept to see the two men gain the top of the stairs. The Fallen knelt with a reassuring smile, but she screamed in horror, her pointing finger showing too late what leapt screeching upon them. A ghoul so withered it barely seemed alive, its skin ablaze with radioactive light, cannoned into the pair. A cry of panic made the Fallen’s head sing, and all he saw of MacCready was one hand clinging dearly to the platform’s edge,

               “MACK! I’ve got you!” Strong hands locked around MacCready’s wrist, but MacCready’s eyes were focused on another,

               “It’s coming back! You gotta take it down!” The Glowing One was on its feet, but the Fallen kept his gaze on the merc,

               “Hold on, Mack!” He tried reaching for his revolver, but felt MacCready’s wrist slip in his grasp. His free hand returned to clinging to his friend, “I…I can’t hold you and fight this thing!” He kicked out frantically as the glowing ghoul sprang towards them. Rad-rotted bones crunched wetly under his foot, but its claws found their mark in his side and the Fallen yelled in pain.

               “Sam! Pull me up, Sam! It’ll rip you apart!” MacCready screamed as black teeth sank into the Fallen’s leg, skeletal fingers raked at him to leave sizzling wounds, “No! Not again!” A shot rang loud, echoing far across the silent trees and the Glowing One shrank back, bright green blood spattering the metal. The Fallen had dropped his rifle to save MacCready and now it swayed in the hands of the injured woman. She held it up before her as the creature jumped, and both of them disappeared down the rusted staircase. The Fallen shut away the terrible burning pain and summoned strength enough to haul MacCready to the platform. The reprieve didn’t last long, and the pair ran to the top of the stairs.

               The Glowing One was dead. It lay lightless and broken on a landing, its neck twisted and torn from the fall. Eyes wide, lungs gasping, but whole, the woman slumped against the wall with the rifle across her knees. The Fallen staggered over to kneel beside her, and those wide eyes looked at him in awe,

               “It’s…it’s you. The one the caravans call a guardian angel.” Her fingers clutched too tightly at the gun when he reached for it. _T_ _ime for a different tactic_ , _then,_

               “Maybe I was, once. Maybe I was the last one.” He sat beside her, for suddenly his bones felt heavier than steel, “last angel in Heaven. God and all his others, had gone an' flown away.” A bitter note soured his voice, “Couldn’t bear to watch anymore.”

               “They call you the Fallen.” A smile tugged at his lips,

               “Aye, they do, ever since the the bombs came, and burned away my wings.” MacCready watched from the stairs, his face solemn, “then I fell, down and down through the burnin’ sky…”

Gently, oh so gently, he pried the gun from her hands, then he smiled, “Well there you go, then. Listen, the Minutemen’ll be here before sunset, they’ll look after you, blankets, hot food, a bed, you name it. My boy MacCready here, he’s got a bit o’ business as needs takin’ care of. Come on, let’s get you to the house.”

               A coil of steam climbed out of the cup in the woman’s hands, no longer trembling. The Fallen leant the barrel of his rifle on his shoulder, seeing from the corner of his eye the inscription upon it, ‘Hand of the One’. “You saved our lives back there, ma’am, ever you need my help again it’s yours, no questions asked, no excuses, no fee. Take care now,” He touched the brim of his hat, and stepped out into the swirling snow. MacCready was leant against the blood-splattered sign, a cigarette between his fingers. They fell into step without a thought, “Mack?”

               “You called?”

               “What’d you mean by ‘Not again’?” Only the soft crunch of snow answered, and neither of them dared to look at the other. “…Deal with it later?”

               “Yeah.”

               “I hear you.”


End file.
